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How to Parent Like a German

Child education, the only discipline where Germans take more risk than Americans:

Quoted

An American mom finds some surprising habits

The first time I went to a playground in Berlin, I freaked. All the German parents were huddled together, drinking coffee, not paying
attention to their children who were hanging off a wooden dragon 20 feet above a sand pit. Where were the piles of soft padded foam?
The liability notices? The personal injury lawyers?

Contrary to stereotypes, most German parents Iâve met are the opposite of strict. They place a high value on independence and responsibility.
Those parents at the park werenât ignoring their children; they were trusting them. Berlin doesnât need a âfree range parentingâ movement
because free range is the norm.

Here are a few surprising things Berlin parents do:

Donât push reading. Berlinâs kindergartens or âkitasâ donât emphasize academics. In fact, teachers and other parents discouraged me from
teaching my children to read. I was told it was something special the kids learn together when they start grade school. Kindergarten was a
time for play and social learning. But even in first grade, academics arenât pushed very hard. Our grade school provides a half-day of instruction
interrupted by two (two!) outdoor recesses. But donât think this relaxed approach means a poor education: According to a 2012 assessment by
the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, German 15-year-olds perform well above the international average when it comes
to reading, math and science while their more pressured American counterparts lag behind.

Encourage kids to play with fire. A note came home from school along with my excited second grader. They were doing a project on fire. Would
I let her light candles and perform experiments with matches? Together we lit candles and burned things, safely. It was brilliant. Still, she was the
only kid whose parent didnât allow her to shoot off heavy duty fireworks on New Yearâs Eve.

Let children go almost everywhere alone. Most grade school kids walk without their parents to school and around their neighborhoods. Some even
take the subway alone. German parents are concerned about safety, of course, but they usually focus on traffic, not abductions.

The facts seem to be on the Germansâ side. Stranger abductions are extremely rare; there were only 115 a year in all of America, according to
the most recent U.S. Department of Justice study. And walking around without parental supervision, or âindependent mobilityâ as the researchers
call it, is good for kids.

Party when school starts. One of my Berlin friends once told me that the three biggest life events are Einschulung (starting first grade), Jugendweihe
(becoming a young adult) and getting married.

In Berlin, Einschulung is a huge celebration at the schoolâon a Saturday!âthat includes getting a Zuckertuteâa giant child-sized cone filled with
everything from pencils to watches to candy. Then thereâs another party afterwards with your family and friends. Einschulung is something children
look forward to for years. It signals a major life change, and hopefully, an enthusiasm for learning.

Jugendweihe happens when a child turns 14. It involves a similar ceremony, party, and gifts, marking the next stage of growing up. With all the
negativity heaped on adolescents, thereâs something to be said for this way of celebrating young adulthood.

Take the kids outside everyday. According to a German saying âthere is no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.â The value of
outside time is promoted in the schools, hence the âgartenâ in Kindergarten. Itâs also obvious on Berlinâs numerous playgrounds. No matter how
cold and grey it gets, and in Berlin it gets pretty cold, parents still bundle their kids up and take them to the park, or send them out on their own.

Which brings me back to that dragonâsince moving here, Iâve tried to adopt some of the Berlin attitude, and my 8-year-old has climbed all over
the dragon. But I still hesitate to let her walk alone in our very urban neighborhood.

Iâve taken one small step. I let her go to the bakery by herself. Itâs just down the stairs and one door over. The first time she did this, she came
back beaming, proudly handing me the rolls she bought herself.

I figured there was no need to tell her that her American mother was out on the balcony, watching her the whole time.

That report by an American mom you posted, really reflects the American attitude about "owning" children(like a car). And, of course, you always have an eye on things you own.
An American aquaintance, when he came to Germany for the first time quite a number of years ago, was totally aghast when he saw lots of kids just being alone in the city, going to or coming from school, or just visiting a friend or going shopping. "In America you would be regarded as being irresponsible." he told me.

When I myself was a child, I played with my friends in the streets, or even in the nearby forest. And we did not have cell-phones in those days. They only existed in science fiction books.

Nowadays you hardly see any children playing in the streets...
And that is not because the parents have become over-protective since then.
Rather the virtual worlds seem to be more interesting to children, even young ones, than the real world. Poor children!

In 1880 Mark Twain wrote the now infamous essay, "The Awful German Language", an account of his frustrations with the German language. Itâs about time we update his marvelous essay and see what has changed in the intervening years.

German spelling is almost perfectly phonetic; what you see is what you get. I can quite confidently read long passages from Kafka, the meaning of which I am completely and utterly ignorant.

[â¦]

Modern German fillers include doch, mal, bloÃ, denn, eben, schon, ja, halt and eigentlich. Donât ask me what they mean, just sprinkle your speech liberally with them. If in doubt, throw in a vielleicht and a wohl. I also would thoroughly recommend genau, âexactlyâ: Iâve seen non-German speakers have half-hour-long telephone conversations using only this word.